More than 150 first-rate musicians will come together in Kuhmo this July in what will be a major series of concerts providing audiences with a unique experience. For two weeks, the little town in the north-east of Finland will once again be a centre for chamber music on an international scale, when the Kuhmo Chamber Music Festival starts on Sunday 10 July.
The Festival begins with Bach and ends two weeks later with Piazzolla. There will be over 70 concerts in all, with performances of music from the Middle Ages up to the present day, covering all genres from solo sonata to opera. Concert-goers will have a chance to hear the Chinese pipa and the Argentine bandoneon in addition to more conventional instruments.
The main theme of this year’s festival is the global village, something Kuhmo has been right from the start. In addition, each day will have its own theme, a notion that takes in all the concerts given on any one day. Some of the day names given are Gates of Knowledge, Legends of the Global Village, Wonderland, Castles in the Air, and A Lesson in Seduction.
Apart from the famous chamber music classics, Kuhmo this summer will be putting on performances of new commissions. Juha T. Koskinen’s string quartet ‘Under a Ginko Tree in Tiergarten’ will have its premiere on Tuesday 12 July, and on Tuesday in the second week of the Festival a new work by Jukka Tiensuu called ‘Kuuhiomo’ will be played.
The two-week festival at Kuhmo has always been praised for its atmosphere and its focus on music itself. That has also been important for its current Artistic director, Vladimir Mendelssohn. He says that the performers feel they are bringing messages from the composers, and that both players and composers know they are nothing less than privileged. They are in the company of the angels and God, because they speak the same language: the language of MUSIC.
For more information:
Kuhmo Chamber Music
Tel. +358 8 652 0936